The World After
by Imperator Augustus
Summary: GLaDOS realizes that maybe she can't just delete feeling from herself, that she needs that mute lunatic in her artificial life Yeah, it's not actually a crossover, Portal and Half Life are in the same Universe


GLaDOS looked through her facility once again, like she had every five point five minutes for the last week...

One week.

That's how long it had been since she threw that mute lunatic out of her facility. Only one week since she had erased Coraline from her, blasted that moron, Wheatley, into space, and since she has gotten rid of her only friend...

That last thought really hit her metaphorically at home. She got rid of her only friend. Why did she still believe in having friends? She deleted the only human aspect from herself. Or had she?

Could a personality exist so long within her that it had become imprinted on her artificial psyche?

This question raced through her logic circuits, GLaDOS desperately trying to find an answer. When she found that she could not create an answer, she began to ponder how she could begin to answer it. The robot foundry spurred to life as she decided on how best to answer her question. She would go out into the world, find Chell, and make her help find the answer. The mute was always so good at finding the answers to her tests, surely she could find the answer to if she was still Coraline or not...

* * *

GLaDOS felt a pang of uncertainty. Did she really want to abandon her facility? Leave it to rot? She quelled this by telling herself that she wasn't leaving forever. She would find the answer then return to her beloved facility, where she would continue to test.

She gently raised one metallic foot, then another. She raised her arms, clenched her fists, and unclenched them. As she walked towards the elevator that would take her out of her facility, her last command took hold. An Aperture Science Dual Portal Device was brought to her, to be her premier tool to use in the outside world. She did not believe in using the weapons known as firearms, but decided that she would require something to protect herself with against the otherworldly forces she had been observing since she was reactivated.

She had gleaned the extent of the Black Mesa Incident from her observations, as well as the extent of the Combine's control of Earth. Even for a Black Mesa employee, the one known as Gordon Freeman must be commended for his actions in fighting the Combine. If such a force were ever to breach her facility, while she may of held them off at first, their greater machines of war would of inevitably destroyed her.

She stepped onto the elevator, making it rise. She was doing it. She was leaving her facility for the outside world...

* * *

The natural light of the sun was bright against her optical sensors as she stepped out into the cornfield Aperture was under, so much so that she actually brought up a hand to block the sun, much like a human would. She scanned the field for any sign of where Chell had gone. She still had the Longfall Boots and the Weighted Companion Cube with her, so there had to be some indication of where she was going.

GLaDOS, while scanning, came upon tracks left by the Longfall Boots, and her optics lit up a long trail of the tracks headed out towards what looked like a ruined city. With this, she took off, running as fast as her new legs would carry her after Chell.

* * *

Chell wandered the ruins of the city, trying to find some other people. She had her Companion Cube, but even it was no substitute for another actual person. She looked to her best friend on constant companion, smiling lightly at the Cube. It really was her best friend, despite it not actually being alive, but it felt alive, and she often imagined it speaking to her, even though GLaDOS told her it couldn't.

That made Chell stop. GLaDOS told her the Cube couldn't speak. GLaDOS. The computer that said they really were sentient and even said "I think that one was about to say, 'I love you'". She looked at her Companion Cube. Could it really be sentient? She had to know now. Setting the Companion Cube down, she looked around, spotting a long metal pole. Taking it in both hands, she began to beat on the top of the Companion Cube, eventually cracking it. Seeing this only made her hit it harder, until eventually, the Cube broke open.

"Oh, uh, hi there..."

* * *

**Yeah I know, it's about 250 words shorter than we would all prefer, but I really wanted to leave this on a cliffhanger. Come on though, that cliffhanger was perfectly engineered, More Gun perfect... Oh bad TF2 Engineer joke  
**


End file.
